Page 78 (part 2)

In the Astro-Theosophic chart of the Western Rite, the Ark corresponds with the navel, and is placed at the sinister side, the side of the woman (the moon), one of whose symbols is the left pillar of Solomon's temple -- B OAZ. The umbilicus is connected through the placenta with the receptacle in which are fructified the embryos of the race. . . The Ark is the sacred Argha of the Hindus, and thus the relation in which it stands to Noah's ark may be easily inferred when we learn that the Argha was an oblong vessel, used by the high priests as a sacrificial chalice in the worship of Isis, Astarte, and Venus-Aphrodite, all of whom were goddesses of the generative powers of nature, or of matter -- hence representing symbolically the Ark containing the germs of all living things." (" Isis Unveiled, " Vol. II ., p. 444.) Mistaken is he who accepts the Kabalistic works of to-day, and the interpretations of the Zohar by the Rabbis, for the genuine Kabalistic lore of old!* For no more to-day than in the day of Frederick von Schelling does the Kabala accessible to Europe and America, contain much more than "ruins and fragments, much distorted remnants still of that primitive system which is the key to all religious systems " (See Kabbala, by Prof. Franck, Preface ) . The oldest system and the [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * The author of the "Qabbalah" makes several attempts to prove conclusively the antiquity of the Zohar. Thus he shows that Moses de Leon could not be the author or the forger of the Zoharic works in the XIII th century, as he is accused of being, since Ibn Gebirol gave out the same philosophical teaching 225 years before the day of Moses de Leon. No true Kabalist or scholar will ever deny the fact. It is certain that Ibn Gebirol based his doctrines upon the oldest Kabalistic sources, namely, the "Chaldean Book of Numbers," as well as some no longer extant Midrashim, the same, no doubt, as those used by Moses de Leon. But it is just the difference between the two ways of treating the same esoteric subjects, which, while proving the enormous antiquity of the esoteric system, points to a decided ring of Talmudistic and even Christian sectarianism in the compilation and glossaries of the Zoharic system by Rabbi Moses. Ibn Gebirol never quoted from the Scriptures to enforce the teachings ( vide I. Myer's Qabbalah, p. 7). Moses de Leon has made of the Zohar that which it has remained to this day, "a running commentary on the . . . Books of the Pentateuch" ( ibid .), with a few later additions made by Christian hands. One follows the archaic esoteric philosophy; the other, only that portion which was adapted to the lost Books of Moses restored by Ezra. Thus, while the system, or the trunk on which the primitive original Zohar was engrafted, is of an immense antiquity many of the (later) Zoharic offshoots are strongly coloured by the peculiar views held by Christian Gnostics (Syrian and Chaldean), the friends and co-workers of Moses de Leon who, as shown by Munk, accepted their interpretations. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 462 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. Chaldean Kabala were identical. The latest renderings of the Zohar are those of the Synagogue in the early centuries -- i.e ., the Thorah, dogmatic and uncompromising. The "King's Chamber" in Cheops ' Pyramid is thus an Egyptian "Holy of Holies." On the days of the Mysteries of Initiation, the candidate, representing the solar god, had to descend into the Sarcophagus, and represent the energizing ray, entering into the fecund womb of Nature. Emerging from it on the following morning, he typified the resurrection of life after the change called Death. In the great M YSTERIES his figurative death lasted two days, when with the Sun he arose on third morning, after a last night of the most cruel trials. While the postulant represented the Sun -- the all-vivifying Orb that "resurrects" every morning but to impart life to all -- the Sarcophagus was symbolic of the female principle. This, in Egypt; its form and shape changed with every country, provided it remained a vessel, a symbolic navis or boat-shaped vehicle, and a container, symbolically, of germs or the germ of life. In India, it is the "golden" Cow through which the candidate for Brahminism has to pass if he desires to be a Brahmin, and to become D WIJA ("reborn a second time"). The crescent-form Argha of the Greeks was the type of the Queen of Heaven -- Diana, or the Moon. She was the great Mother of all Existences, as the Sun was the Father. The Jews, previous to, as well as after their metamorphosis of Jehovah into a male god, worshipped Astoreth, which made Isaiah declare: " Your new moons and feasts my soul hateth," ( i . 14); saying which, he was evidently unjust. Astoreth and the New-moon (the crescent argha ) festivals, had no worse significance as a form of public worship than had the hidden meaning of the moon in general, which was Kabalistically connected directly with, and sacred to, Jehovah, as is well known; with the sole difference that one was the female and the other the male aspect of the moon, and of the star Venus. The Sun (the Father), the Moon (the Mother), and Mercury-Thoth (the Son), were the earliest Trinity of the Egyptians, who personified them in Osiris, Isis, and Thoth (Hermes). In [[ PISTIS SOPHIA ]], the seven great gods, divided into two triads and the highest God (the Sun) are: the lower [[ Tridunameis ]], whose powers reside respectively in Mars, Mercury and Venus; and the higher Triad ("the three unseen gods") who dwell in the Moon, Jupiter and Saturn; ( vide §§ 359 and 361 et seq ) . This requires no proof. Astoreth was in one sense an impersonal symbol of nature, the ship of Life carrying throughout the boundless Sidereal Ocean the germs of all being. And when she was not identified with Venus, like every other "Queen of Heaven" to whom cakes and buns were offered in sacrifice, Astoreth became the reflection of the [[Vol.